


A Prince's Part

by oyhumbug



Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Betrayal, Cancer, Drama, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Love, Medical Situations, Murder, Music, Orphans, Revenge, Romance, San Francisco Bay Area, Secrets, Sex, Smut, Stalking, Suicide, alternative history
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:40:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29233911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oyhumbug/pseuds/oyhumbug
Summary: “Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but, in passing it over, he is superior, for it is a prince’s part to pardon.” ~ Francis Bacon
Relationships: Jax Teller & Clay Morrow, Jax Teller & David Hale, Jax Teller & Gemma Teller Morrow, Jax Teller & Opie Winston, Jax Teller & Piney Winston, Jax Teller & Tig Trager, Opie Winston/Donna Winston, Tara Knowles/Jax Teller
Comments: 10
Kudos: 8





	1. The Spangle Maker

**A Prince’s Part**

_ “Certainly, in taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy, but, in passing it over, he is superior, for it is a prince’s part to pardon.” ~ Francis Bacon _

**The Spangle Maker**

Jax was balls deep inside of some nameless, faceless pussy when his cell rang. Looking back, he couldn’t say what made him actually answer it - maybe it was boredom, or curiosity, or dutifulness, or maybe he really was just that well trained, but it sure as shit wasn’t some kind of premonition. Nothing could have prepared him for the news he received.    
  
With one hand holding the phone to his ear and the other holding the cro-eater’s hips in place so he could fuck her hard from behind, Jax snapped, “what,” upon answering the call. He never slowed his pace, and he didn’t look at the screen to see who was calling him.    
  
“You need to get down here.”   
  
Jax smirked and pulled the blonde he was banging back onto his cock while, at the same time, he rammed it inside of her. It amused him to know that, if David Fucking Hale was aware of what Jax was doing while they were on the phone together, he’d either be embarrassed or he’d cum so hard he wouldn’t see straight for days. “I’m a little busy here at….”   
  
“Donna’s been shot. She’s dead.”   
  
Hale hung up, and Jax stumbled backwards, consequently pulling out. For several seconds, he just stood there - jeans around his ankles, eyes sightless, dick suddenly flaccid and resting wet and sticky upon his left thigh, the rubber he wore cooling instantaneously.    
  
It was a shrill, sullen “hey!” that brought him back to the moment.    
  
“I gotta go,” Jax said. In part, it was to appease the very naked, petulant woman in the bunkroom’s bed, but it was also to motivate his ass into gear. While he said it, he bent over at the waist, reaching with one hand to pull his boxers and pants up and, with the other, he peeled off the condom he was wearing.    
  
“But wait,” the pussy cried, sitting up so that she was just kneeling instead of how he had minutes before positioned her on all fours. She turned around to face him - her pout replaced with apologies and self-reprimands. “I’m sorry! I’ll… be better. I’ll do whatever you want, however you want it.”    
  
Jax ignored her, picking his t-shirt and kutte up off of the floor and putting them on. Once he was dressed, he slipped his phone into a pocket and looked around the room for his keys. He spotted them on a nightstand and moved to grab them, but the blonde grabbed his arms and tried to hold him back, tried to pull him back towards her and the bed once more. Irritated, Jax looked at her hand for several seconds before moving his glare to her face, silently telling her to let go. She didn’t take the fucking hint.    
  
“You can have any hole. Or all of them! Just… please, let me get you off.”   
  
“Jesus fucking christ,” Jax swore, yanking his arm away from the desperate, pathetic woman.    
  
And Opie wondered why Jax was still single.   
  
The sobering thought of his best friend had Jax scrambling to leave once more. Without a passing glance… let alone a response… for the pussy he was leaving behind - she’d either figure it out on her own and leave or somebody else would stumble upon her and finish what Jax had started, he ran out of the bunkroom. The clubhouse was still quite full, but Jax neither saw who was there nor heard them if they said anything to him in passing. Slamming outside, he ran to his bike, not bothering to put on any of his gear. Hale had failed to mention where ‘here’ was, but, in a town as small as Charming, it wouldn’t be difficult to find the clusterfuck caused by the death of a mother of two and the wife of a Son.    
  
As Jax drove towards the eerie collective wail of a maelstrom of sirens, he tried to wrap his mind around the fact that Donna Winston was dead. No, not dead. Murdered. There was a big fucking difference there.    
  
He and Donna weren’t overly close. For someone else’s old lady, she was nice enough. She was a good mom, and she worked hard. But Opie loved her, so that automatically granted her Jax’s respect and affection. They could go months without seeing each other - and they had when Ope had been locked up in Chino for five years, but that didn’t mean that Jax wouldn’t drop everything if she needed his help. And, now that she was dead, he’d do whatever it took to make things right again.    
  
While Jax had never been close to marriage himself, he recognized the bond that was between his best friend and his best friend’s wife. Given the Samcro lifestyle, their own less than stellar role models growing up, and their shit life prospects, it still amazed Jax that Opie had married such a good woman. But women like Donna didn’t come around the club often. She was a once in a lifetime kind of girl, and she had been Opie’s. Jax would stick to his meaningless sex with meaningless women, and he’d be glad of it. He didn’t need the pressure or responsibility of a family, and, now, he sure as shit didn’t need the heartbreak.    
  
But, as he pulled up at the scene of Donna’s murder - just another intersection, nothing about it standing out from all the rest except for the flashing lights, utter chaos, and the scent of copper raindrops, Jax admitted to himself that, despite not wanting a relationship, he had always been jealous of his best friend’s marriage - of the life and family Opie had built with Donna. That was all gone now, though. With a few shots to the back of the head, everything that Jax had secretly envied had been taken from Ope. Maybe his best friend was one of the only people in Jax’s life who had known real, true love, but it was lost now, and there was no way that was better than never having it in the first place.    
  
As Jax climbed off his Dyna and started searching the crowd of first responders, cops, and curious onlookers, he snorted to himself. Tennyson was a fucking moron. 

///

It didn’t take a badge to see what had happened.   
  
Someone had rolled up behind the old truck when it slowed at a stop sign and shot through the rear window.    
  
Pop. Pop. Pop.   
  
Only… it wasn’t Ope behind the wheel but his wife.   
  
What Jax didn’t understand was who was behind the hit. Relatively speaking, they were good at the moment with both friend and foe. While an outlaw MC would never have sunshine coming out of its ass, they were also a long way from women getting slaughtered by gang hits.    
  
But the who and why could wait. As much as Jax wanted to find answers for both himself and his best friend, as much as he wanted to find the fuckers who thought it was a good idea to go after Opie and, by accident, murder his wife instead and get a little… or a lot… of payback, there was something he needed to do first.   
  
No one got in his way as Jax walked through the crime scene. Passing by Donna’s lifeless body - her eyes still open in permanent horror and realization, Jax ordered some random tech to cover her up. Ope was just standing there by his dead wife, staring sightlessly. Jax wasn’t sure if Opie was in denial, looking for some sign of life - one that he’d never find, or if he was just too empty and devastated to process anything else - paralyzed in his grief. It was probably a combination of the two. Having never loved someone the way that Opie had loved Donna, Jax could only imagine what dark and twisted shit his best friend was going through.    
  
So, when he made it to Opie’s side, he didn’t offer him some bullshit, empty platitudes or a fucking apology that would only make the situation worse. He stayed quiet, simply lifting his left hand to rest upon and squeeze Opie’s shoulder in silent support. If Ope wanted to talk, Jax would listen. If Ope wanted to rage, Jax would be right there by his side, leaving a trail of damage in their wake. And if Ope just needed to know that he wasn’t alone in his grief, Jax could do that, too.    
  
“You know, all she wanted was for me to get out.”   
  
“And you did,” Jax tried to comfort his best friend. “You served your time, and you came back to her and your kids.”   
  
“No,” Ope argued. Although he didn’t look away from where Donna was now laying underneath a black, plastic body bag, Jax could hear the frustration and anger oozing from his brother’s voice thick with unshed tears and scratchy from too many cigarettes. “She wanted me to leave the club.”   
  
“I mean, it’s been rough lately, man, but Donna loved you. She wouldn’t have….”   
  
Opie cut him off, obviously not interested in listening to Jax’s pathetic attempts to ease his guilt and grief… even if fractionally. “I was too selfish. We always did what I wanted. I wanted to join the club. I wanted to get married. I wanted to have babies right away. And Donna went along with it, because she loved me. But the one time that she actually wanted something, do you think that I loved her enough to do it?” Neither of them needed Opie to actually answer his own question. The self loathing weighing upon his shoulders, haunting his gaze, coating his every word was answer enough.    
  
“Even when Donna finally had a chance to get us out - if I wouldn’t do it, then she was our only hope, she didn’t. Instead, she put my needs, my wishes, first - above her own, above our children’s, and she did what she thought was best for me, not herself, or Ellie, or Kenny.”   
  
“She was loyal,” Jax summarized, his tone low, and solemn, and respectful. It was meant as a compliment, but, before the last syllable left his lips, Opie was turning on him, confronting him, glowering at him.    
  
“Was she really, Jackson? Because, after everything the club took away from her, after all the shit it put her through, Donna had no reason to be loyal to Samcro. No,” Ope shook his head, backing away and letting his first tears fall. He did nothing to curb them, to wipe them away. In fact, to Jax, it felt like Ope wanted the tears to burn the next words he spoke into Jax’s mind, memory, heart, and conscience. “It wasn’t loyalty; it was fear.”   
  
With that, Ope faded into, first, the chaos of his wife’s murder scene and, then, the inky nothingness created at the very edge of pandemonium - where the blaring lights and bright sirens clashed and contrasted with the black of night. Before Jax could argue - let alone follow, Opie was gone… as was Jax’s reason for being there. Retracing his steps, Jax left everything at that intersection behind - Hale and the ATF fighting over blame and responsibility, Samcro simultaneously plotting payback and shallowly mourning, the crime scene techs and paramedics who were just trying to do their jobs, and poor Donna who would never be able to do anything again - in favor of once more climbing on his bike and taking off in search of his best friend. Even if Opie didn’t want to be found, Jax had a feeling that Ope shouldn’t be left alone… if for no other reason than that’s not what Donna would have wanted. Maybe he couldn’t bring her back, and he certainly couldn’t solve her case that night, but he could look for Opie. After all, Donna had never given up on her husband, and Jax wasn’t going to give up on Ope either. 

///

“You know, for someone who is practically allergic to the law, you sure as hell spend a lot of time in my police department.”   
  
“Last time I checked, it’s still Unser’s department,” Jax challenged with a smirk. He was sitting behind Hale’s desk, spinning the tipped back chair from side to side. Perhaps it wasn’t the best way to go about asking for a favor, but it sure as shit got the deputy’s attention. Plus, at least this way, even if Jax left without the information he sought, he wouldn’t be walking out empty handed. Hale’s annoyance was never something he’d pass up. “Besides, maybe I like the coffee.”

“I swear, Jax, if you spiked the….”   
  
Deciding they had shared enough banter, Jax sat up with a snap of the leather chair, his twisting coming to an abrupt stop as well. “We need to talk about Donna’s death.”   
  
“You mean her murder.”   
  
Although he thought the same thing about the shooting, Jax didn’t give Hale the satisfaction of agreeing, nor did he waste time saying what they both already knew. “I’d like to give Ope some comfort, some… closure. He’s… he’s not doing so well.”   
  
Hale scoffed. “His wife just had the back of her head blown off. I wouldn’t think he’d be in a good place right now.”   
  
“So, you agree that we need to find whoever did this.”   
  
“And what,” the cop challenged him. “Get some payback? Killing Donna’s killer won’t bring her back.”   
  
“No, it might give Opie a little peace,” Jax contended.   
  
“Nothing can make this right, Jax; nothing can give him any peace. He will never be the man he used to be, your best friend, again. Besides,” Hale added before Jax could argue with him, “I’m an officer of the law. Even if it was that simple - an enemy of Samcro killed Donna, so you kill the enemy, I wouldn’t allow you to make me an accessory to murder.”   
  
“But you’d let a murderer go free, no consequences,” Jax snapped. He stood up, leaning forward to brace his fisted hands on the top of Hale’s desk.

“If I had any actual evidence, I’d have already made the arrest.” Then, much to Jax’s surprise, Hale looked around the police department before stepping further into his own office and shutting the door behind him. Lowering his voice, he said, “but I think we both know that, if either of us is going to find the proof I need to lock up Donna’s killer, it’ll be you.”   
  
Jax stood up straight, folded his arms across his chest. “What exactly are you saying, Hale? Cut the cryptic bullshit.”   
  
“The ATF planted bugs to make it look like Opie ratted. I think Clay found out.”   
  
And then Jax exploded. “Oh, give me a fucking break! You think Samcro did this, that the club went after Ope but killed his old lady instead? We’d…  _ I’d  _ never sanction something like that!”   
  
“I never said you would,” Hale tried to placate him. 

But Jax was too far gone inside of the vacuum that was his anger, inside the void that was his own suspicions buried deep beneath his vehement denials. “You and your family have always had it out for Samcro. You’d do anything to take us down, including, apparently, using an innocent woman’s death to your advantage.”   
  
In contrast to Jax’s own resounding voice, Hale maintained his cool. He spoke evenly, smoothly, never losing his temper or composure, and the contrast forced Jax to actually listen to what the deputy was saying. The words themselves in their shocking nature helped, too. “You know, I remember your old man quite well. I never actually had a conversation with him, but, growing up, my father hated him, so JT fascinated me. Contrary to what you believe about me, I am capable of thinking for myself. Sometimes, I have an opinion different from those of my family.”   
  
Hale paused, seemingly to gauge if Jax was willing to hear him out. He was. So, David continued. “I think JT had good intentions when he started the club. Just back from Vietnam, disenfranchised with the people and the institution that sent him there, he was trying to make Charming a little slice of what he remembered of life before the war. And many of the people here wanted the same thing, and they appreciated someone who was willing to stand up to  _ the man _ and keep their small town small, their businesses their own. But, as the Sons grew bigger and became more powerful, they lost sight of that. All roads to hell are paved with good intentions, and JT’s were no different. It was inevitable that his good intentions would become corrupted, because absolute power - and, let’s face it, that’s what Samcro has always had around here - corrupts absolutely.”   
  
“Do you have a fucking point,” Jax snarled, “or are you just going to spew cliched axioms to me all goddamn morning?”   
  
Changing topics suddenly and blindsiding Jax, Hale asked him, “how much do you really know about your dad’s death?”   
  
“JT’s accident has nothing to do with Donna’s murder. It’s ancient history.”   
  
With a sad, wry twist of his lips, the deputy chief argued, “except, when that ancient history becomes precedent, it’s not so ancient after all.”   
  
For several moments the two rivals and former classmates just stood across from each other in silence, neither willing to concede but neither willing to offer anything else to the other either. Although Hale wasn’t without sympathy, there was also a smug sense of knowing about him that rubbed Jax the wrong way, because it meant he simply couldn’t dismiss the cop’s words as his typical, vendetta fueled nonsense. There was validity to Hale’s remarks, a logical line of thought that, if Jax were to follow it, would not only lead him back to Donna’s killer but would also blow up his entire fucking life. Hale was implying that perhaps JT’s death wasn’t an accident, that someone wanted his dad out of the way so that they could have and wield the power he possessed within the Sons, and that Donna was killed by that same person in order to protect the club but, more importantly, the power it afforded her murderer, his father’s murderer.    
  
But as easy as it was to connect the two deaths with Hale’s theory, it also made no sense. If someone in the club had murdered his old man, Jax would have known. Gemma would have known. Someone else within the club would have found out, and they would have righted that wrong. As for Donna, Samcro didn’t go after women, and they certainly didn’t go after wives or mothers. Even if Samcro believed Opie to be a rat, something like that would have been brought to the table. They had ways to handle shit like that. Bottom line, what Hale said might have made some kind of sense, but Donna’s death made none, so its explanation had to be just as senseless. 

And if it wasn’t, if Hale was right and someone within Samcro had killed JT and murdered Donna, then Jax sure as hell wasn’t going to give some pissant cop, David Hale of all people, the satisfaction of watching Jax come to that realization. So, instead, he left, roughly shouldering past the deputy without another word being said between them. Jax slammed out of Hale’s office, pulling the door open so hard that the handle left a dent in the sheetrock when it collided with the wall.    
  
Despite leaving with his determination washed over his face like a shield, Jax felt the shadows of their conversation nipping at his tennis shoe clad heels with every step he took outside of that office, with every mile he put between his bike and that police department. His sudden doubts about… everything would not, could not, leave as easily as Jax himself had. It was just one more thing that he resented about, that he held against, David Hale. Unfortunately, though, before everything was said and done, Jax had a feeling that he would need the cop in order to sort through the shitstorm that had suddenly become his life.    
  
And that realization just pissed him off all the more. 

///

“What the hell was that, Old Man?”   
  
Jax didn’t knock. He didn’t ring the bell or even call out a greeting before barging his way into Piney’s house. When he and Opie were kids, they used to treat each other’s houses as their own, but this entrance had nothing to do with familiarity or family and everything to do with rage brought on by fear. One of the two only living, non-incarcerated members of the First Nine seemed to be anticipating his arrival, though, for he didn’t react. Not a blink. Not a drop of spilled tequila. Not a wheeze.    
  
“ _ That  _ was desperation,” Piney answered succinctly. While the older Winston, much like his son, wasn’t much for conversation, his brevity and futile candor took the storm out of Jax’s sails. His turbulent, charging steps came to a skidding halt, while Piney just sighed. “It had to be the Niners. Because, if they didn’t kill my daughter, then we both know who really did.”   
  
Jax had followed Piney back to Charming after the old timer had barged into a Niner bar and taken one of their members hostage at gunpoint, demanding answers about Donna’s murder. “You have no proof!” Despite the vehemence behind his denial, they both knew his words were empty. Jax wasn’t so much arguing against Piney as he was still fighting himself.    
  
Proof or no proof, what Hale had more than hinted at, what Piney was now confirming, what Jax himself more than suspected went against everything that Jax had believed and built his life around since he was a kid. When his dad died, Clay had stepped up to fill John’s shoes - not just with the club but with Gemma and Jax, too. And while, yeah, sure, teenage Jax had hated the idea of his mom with his dead dad’s best friend, as long as he didn’t have to see it, and he sure as shit never thought about it, then a happy Gemma was a distracted Gemma, and that kept her occupied and out of his face. Clay was not only his mother’s husband and Jax’s stepfather, but he was also his club’s president. In regards to something so important - a woman’s murder, reason should have been all that mattered, but it wasn’t that simple. It couldn’t be.    
  
As Jax had been standing there, lost in his own thoughts and waiting for Piney to respond, the older man had pushed himself up off of his couch and ambled away. It was only when Piney reentered the room that Jax noticed he had left it in the first place. But what really captured his attention was the thick, open envelope Piney was carrying.   
  
“Here,” his best friend’s father grunted, tossing the package at Jax’s face. Though he caught it before it could smack or cut him, he still glared at the older man. But Piney ignored the look of censure, huffing and puffing as he collapsed back onto the sofa with an audible groan.    
  
“For me, Old Man,” Jax hassled - part out of habit and part out of sincerity, for he had a feeling he wasn’t going to like what was inside the envelope. “You’ve never gotten me a gift before. Don’t fucking start now.”   
  
“Just shut the hell up and open it, Shithead.”   
  
Despite wanting to toss the package back at the older man, Jax refrained. He wasn’t sure if it was habit, for he had been listening to Piney for one reason or another - Piney was his dad’s best friend, he was a member of the First Nine, he was Opie’s dad - his entire life, or self-preservation. Piney might be old, and he might already have one foot in the grave, but Jax had no doubt that there was at least half an arsenal of guns hidden in the living room alone, and Piedmont Winston did not suffer fools at all… let alone gladly.    
  
Then, once he had the envelope open, Jax was once more reminded that sometimes in life restraint wasn’t just necessary but preferable, because, inside, he found a note written to Piney from John Teller. “To my oldest, dearest, and wisest friend,” Jax paused in reading out loud the short missive, fighting back a laugh. Oldest and dearest, at least for JT, might be true enough, but he had never heard anybody refer to Piney as wise before. “What we started, you and I, was a good thing for a good reason; what we’ve become is a different thing for reasons I no longer understand. I feel angry winds at my back, and I’m not sure how much time I have left in this kutte I love so much. This book is for all the things we wanted. And for all the things we still can be.” Skipping the salutation, Jax started to page through the manuscript. Without looking up to meet Piney’s gaze, he questioned, “what the hell is this? JT wrote a book?”   
  
“That’s what you just read, wasn’t it? What, can’t you handle basic comprehension?”   
  
Letting the pages fall flat once more but not letting go of them or the envelope, Jax glowered. He was standing in the middle of a room that he would know like the back of his own hand drunk, stoned, concussed, and sleep walking. It was the room of childhood sleepovers, of adolescent video game wars, and teenage hangouts and hangovers, and, yet, the only thing familiar in that moment was Jax’s irritation with the older man. So, he went with it, embraced it, and he accused, “it’s been fifteen years since JT died, Piney! Why are you just giving this to me now; why give it to me at all at this point?”   
  
While Piney didn’t stand, even still sitting he was a belligerent force to be reckoned with, oxygen tank and all. “Because, while it’s too late for me to do something to help my own kid, it’s not too late for you.”   
  
“What are you talking about? Opie’s still here. He needs you… perhaps now more than ever. He’s still alive, Piney!”   
  
“Without Donna, he might as well be dead. And probably will be soon, too.” When Jax opened his mouth to argue, the older man talked right over top of him. “Look at me, Jackson. If I’m not proof to you that breathin’ ain’t living, then you’re just as lost as my son.”   
  
Despite wanting to fight Piney further, there was an undeniable element of truth to what he said - whisperings of his own silent fears concerning Opie and how his best friend would handle Donna’s death echoed back at him. So, instead, he sighed in defeat, his shoulders slumping under the weight of duty, obligation, and what would inevitably come next. “So, what now?”   
  
Piney stood and slowly advanced towards Jax so that they were eye to eye. “You worry about the club. I’ll handle Clay.” Jax opened his mouth to protest, but the old man simply held up a hand asking for, demanding, silence. “It’s something I should have done years ago.”   
  
Jax didn’t want to touch those implications - someone, once more, hinting towards Clay’s past misdeeds, because he knew Piney, so he knew that there was very little which could cause JT’s best friend to take such a proactive stance against another member, another of the first nine, Samcro’s long-standing and current president. So, instead, he just nodded his head in recognition of Piney’s command, and he left, his father’s manuscript tucked safely under his left arm. 

///

  
For as much booze and weed that was churning its way through Jax’s system, he was still painfully sober. After all, there wasn’t anything in this world powerful enough to numb his current pain or stifle his ever increasing fury. But did he want it to; did he  _ deserve  _ respite? Jax didn’t think so. It would be his penitence to bear. After failing to help Opie in life, he’d now be forever trying to make it up to his best friend in death.   
  
Despite his staggering regret and remorse, when Opie left Donna’s funeral service, no one followed him. Even if someone had, there’s no guarantee that they would have been able to keep up with the mourning man. If Ope wanted to get lost, he would. Jax might have stood a chance - what, being his best friend and perhaps even more familiar with all of the roads, lanes, and paths in and around Charming, but Jax had been battling his own demons, wrestling with what he could possibly do with the suspicions he knew were true but could not prove. And, in all honesty, until Hale crashed Donna’s wake with the unbelievable, unbearable news that, shortly after he left the cemetery, Opie ate his own gun, Jax never would have pegged his oldest friend as suicidal.    
  
As he drank straight from his bottle of whisky and tried to not only drown his sorrows but also drown out everyone else around him, Jax considered why this would be so, why Opie killing himself was so unthinkable. After all, he had witnessed just how ravaged Opie had been by his wife’s death. No,  _ her murder _ . How inconsolable. How angry and guilt-ridden. Yet, he still hadn’t seen Ope’s suicide coming, had been blindsided by it. Although he had known loss during his life - first his little brother and then his father, Jax realized that, while painful, those deaths were nothing like what Opie had experienced when he saw the empty, lifeless eyes of his wife and the mother of his children staring up at him. Jax had simply never  _ loved  _ anyone to the same depths as Opie had loved Donna. Even now, even after losing his best friend, Jax would never contemplate ending his own life, not for a second.   
  
Sitting there in the clubhouse alone and yet surrounded by more Sons than he could name, Jax could admit to himself that, in hindsight, this whole, entire mess was inevitably going to end like this. As soon as that first slug entered the back of Donna’s head, Opie was already gone. In all honesty, Jax had actually lost his best friend the same night that Ope had lost his wife. Even if he hadn’t committed suicide, Opie never would have been the same again. He could have gone on, and he could have still existed, but he would have been a dead man walking. By his own hand or by forcing someone else’s, once Donna died, Opie was destined to follow her.    
  
Although Clay was at home with Gemma, and Piney was off somewhere alone, drinking his body weight in tequila, the rest of Samcro was lined up at the clubhouse’s bar. Other charters lingered in their shock despite the fact that the wake had long since dissolved into near silence. Besides the occasional murmur, the scratch of a lighter, and the desolate thumpings of liquor bottles hitting varnished mahogany, the only thing, the only person, to trespass against the stillness was Tig. While the sergeant at arms might have been mumbling more to himself than he was addressing the room, in the quiet, his distraught ramblings carried.   
  
If anyone else found Tig’s level of sorrow suspicious, they didn’t visibly react to it. Eyes remained downcast or closed, and no one moved to comfort the distraught Son. As Tig’s tearful, drunken, sloppy ramblings went on, Jax found himself caught between the urge to see his own knife slice through the older man’s throat, silencing him forever, and hanging on Tig’s every word. Tig and Opie had never been particularly close. In fact, lately, their relationship could have been labeled downright contentious. Yet, for some reason, Tig was the one most torn up by Ope’s death. The only way that made any sense to Jax was if Tig’s grief wasn’t motivated by feelings of loss but, instead, by feelings of guilt.    
  
“Opie should’ve known better. I did, and I’m a sick, twisted freak. Ope was a good man. He should’ve known.”   
  
Jax’s brain might have been swimming in whiskey, the air he released from his lungs with every inhalation more smoke than carbon dioxide, but there was something about Tig’s tone that made him sit up straight and pay attention. In fact, not caring if anyone noticed his intent focus upon the inebriated Tig, he noiselessly put his bottle down, snubbed out his latest joint, and turned on his barstool to face the older, nearly incoherent man.    
  
“If you love a woman - and I mean  _ really  _ love her… like Opie loved Donna, then you gotta let her go. You don’t bring her into this life. If you have to, you kill her yourself. Before this life can. Because it will. It killed Donna, and now it’s killed Ope. That’s why you gotta push ‘em away. Right from the start. Even if it kills you, you kill her. That’s what I did. I killed her. I killed her. I killed her.”   
  
Even after Tig’s voice faded away into nothingness, his lips kept mouthing those same words.  _ I killed her _ . If Jax had read between the lines of Tig’s nonsense correctly, then there had once been a girl, a woman, who Tig loved enough to walk away from. While Jax believed Tig fully capable of murder, when he said  _ I killed her _ , Jax believed Tig meant the relationship. Yet, at the same time, the longer his confession went on, the more meaning and weight it contained. More so now than ever, Jax was convinced that the hit on Donna had come from within Samcro, and, while Clay might have been the idea man, he didn’t like to get his hands dirty, so he had sent his little errand boy.   
  
After the Marines but before he patched into Samcro, there had been someone in Tig’s life that he had loved enough to leave behind before the life he had chosen for himself took her from him, and, now, thirty years later, Tig had become the very threat the MC life posed, taking Donna from Opie and then pushing Opie to take his own life. Maybe Jax couldn’t prove that Clay and Tig were behind Donna’s murder, but what if he could make it right in a different way, a darker way, in a way that no one would understand better than Tig himself?    
  
What if Jax took from Tig exactly what Tig had taken from Ope: the only woman he had ever loved?


	2. Dear Heart

**Dear Heart**

Her name was Grace Knowles, and she was already dead.   
  
Just another statistic, she had died an unremarkable death from cancer a few years back. If Tig knew of Grace’s passing, Jax had never noticed his grief. What made more sense was that, after Tig had ended their relationship, he had purposefully lost track of Grace, never giving into the temptation to search her out or keep tabs on her despite the photographs of her that still lingered in the club’s archives.    
  
Jax’s estimation of the relationship’s timeline had been right. Somehow between his time in the military and patching into Samcro, Tig had met Grace Knowles and, apparently, had fallen in love with her. From the few pictures that remained of them - Tig nearly unrecognizable with his crew cut and buttoned-up appearance; Grace tall and thin, dreamy and sad even on film, at first, he had brought her around the club. While he was prospecting, she was a regular figure around the clubhouse, though there was no indication of her either spending much time with anyone but Tig or having any particular connection to the Sons. In fact, there wasn’t even a shot of her with Tig on his bike.    
  
Luckily, the photos were all labeled with names and dates, because, otherwise, Jax would have had to ask someone who had been around back then for the strange woman’s identity. Once he had her name, her life, in just a few clicks, became an open book for him. Unfortunately, that open book was also closed as well, because you couldn’t achieve revenge by killing a dead woman.   
  
Jax had skimmed Grace Knowles’ obituary, as uninterested in her in death as he had been about her in life prior to learning of her connection to Tig. It was succinct and matter-of-fact, impersonal. But there was one line that did manage to stand out, that made Jax sit up at the computer and take notice.    
  
_ She was survived by a daughter, Doctor Tara Grace Knowles. _

But Tara Grace Knowles wasn’t  _ just  _ a doctor. All it took was one, simple internet search, and Jax learned that she was a surgeon.    
  
_ A fucking surgeon!  _ _   
_ _   
_ Technically, she was a surgical resident, but still this was a very accomplished, very intelligent woman whose mother had once dated Tig? Jax had known the older man long enough to be aware of his…  _ proclivities _ . Nothing about his search into Tig’s past fit with what he knew of him in the present, and the results were less than inspiring in his quest for payback. And yet….   
  
The time frame fit. By the dates on the back of the photos Jax had found, Tig and Grace had dated during the late 70s. Tara, Grace’s daughter and only living relative, was 28, according to the few newspaper clippings among Jax’s search results. While, distantly, he noted how little information existed online about her, especially for someone who was obviously driven and an overachiever, Jax was too focused on the math to wonder about anything else. Because… could she? Was it even possible?    
  
Obviously, it was  _ possible _ . But it seemed extremely improbable. Tig might have been a horrible human being, but he had at least claimed his two children, and he was in their lives… at least peripherally. But maybe he didn’t know. Maybe, in seeking an eye for an eye, Jax’s revenge could actually hurt Tig twice over. First, by revealing that he had a secret daughter with his  _ great love _ \- the woman he had loved enough to let go, Jax would tarnish Tig’s memories of his feelings for and his relationship with Grace, and, then, in the same breath, in the same hit, taking that secret daughter away from Tig forever, in a way killing Grace all over again  _ and  _ wiping away every last trace of her.    
  
But, first, Jax needed proof. As fate, or luck, or chance - whatever it should be called - would have it, Dr. Tara Knowles lived and worked in Northern California. San Francisco wasn’t exactly a convenient ride for Jax to make, but his plan would have been severely hampered had she worked in a different state or, even worse, the opposite coast. So, that’s how he found himself, weeks after Donna’s murder and Opie’s suicide, camped out in the main waiting room at UCSF Parnassus, collecting more and more wary glances as the hours ticked by. And the worst part was that he wasn’t even sure what he hoped to accomplish.   
  
Even if Jax managed to put eyes on Tara Knowles… and that was a long shot, then what? St. Thomas was no UCSF Parnassus. Yes, the waiting room Jax had selected was the closest to the main parking garage and the staff lot across Parnassus Avenue, but there were other garages, other lots. And what if Tara didn’t drive; what if she took public transportation? Jax had no idea where she lived - he couldn’t track that down online, so he knew nothing of her habits, of her lifestyle. Hell, he didn’t even know  _ if  _ she was working, because it’s not like a surgical resident’s shifts were posted on the hospital website or even routine.    
  
Plus, technically, he  _ had  _ already looked at Grace Knowles’ daughter. In one of the articles that spoke of her educational endeavors and feats, there had been a picture - several years outdated but still recent enough for Jax to see that she was her mother’s daughter… at least in looks. If Tig was her father, she carried none of him with her in her face. Despite not proving or disproving anything, Jax had still printed that article out, cutting it down so that just the photo remained. It, along with the copy of Doctor Knowles’ birth certificate that he’d paid for - another dead end, for her father’s name was not provided, were tucked into the pages of his father’s manuscript, the manuscript open in his hands and on his lap, though Jax had not read a word since sitting down in the uncomfortable and outdated upholstered waiting room chair.    
  
It wasn’t like seeing Tara in person was going to tell Jax anything more than seeing her picture had: while there was nothing to disprove the possibility that she was Tig’s daughter… besides the fact that it was mind-boggling to consider his genes having helped to produce such an intelligent and talented woman, there was nothing shy of a DNA test that could confirm the paternity either. And it wasn’t like Jax could just go up to her and ask for a saliva sample or rip a few strands of her hair out by the root. Even if she walked by him ranting about hookers or lamenting dolls, crazy did not corroboration make. Sure, it’d be one hell of a coincidence, but Jax was contemplating murder here; he needed a little more than just one hell of a twist of fate.   
  
And yet… wasn’t his mind already made up, with or without proof of paternity? If Tig had loved Grace Knowles as much as his conscience-stricken ramblings had indicated, then it wouldn’t matter if he was Tara’s father or not. Maybe Jax couldn’t kill Grace Knowles, but he could kill her daughter, her spitting image, the physical embodiment of her memory. So, perhaps Jax wasn’t there seeking a truth but, instead, was starting his hunt. To kill her, he had to know her. Tig had known Donna. Despite the cold-blooded nature of a spray of bullets to the back of the head, Donna’s death had been personal. So, Tara’s death needed to be personal, too. It would hurt more that way. It would mean more, too.   
  
What Jax was proposing - these actions he was prepared to undertake on his dead best friend’s behalf and in honor of Opie and Donna’s memories, it shouldn’t be easy, and it shouldn’t be anonymous. He needed to put in the time, and he needed to do this right. And, if he was being completely open and honest with himself, he needed it to hurt as well - not Tara, for her he would make this as painless as possible, because, maybe Tig deserved this end, but she didn’t; but him. It needed to hurt Jax. If it didn’t….   
  
And then she was there.   
  
Jeans, sweater, boots. She already had her sunglasses on despite the fact that she was still inside of the hospital, and she had a large bag near to bursting with files and textbooks tossed over her shoulder. Her long, thick, loose hair was still slightly damp from a shower, its coffee color consequently slightly darker. She walked with quick, sure strides, and she never paused to talk to anyone. As sudden as her appearance was, she left just as quickly, but there was no doubt in Jax’s mind that the determined woman he had just watched without blinking was Doctor Tara Grace Knowles.    
  
He wanted to follow her. He wanted to watch her get into her car, jot down the license plate, and then jump on his bike to take off after her. He wanted to ask around about her, see what the other doctors, her fellow residents, the nurses thought of her. But Charming was calling, the club beckoning. Jax had been gone all day, giving no word to anyone as to where he was going or when he would be back. He left home before the sunrise, and it’d be dark by the time his bike blurred by the ‘Welcome to Charming’ sign once again. Despite the hours he had wasted just sitting there and doing nothing, those few seconds with Tara Knowles locked in his sights made it all worthwhile. Really, he hadn’t accomplished anything, but, at the same time, it felt like he had accomplished  _ everything _ .    
  
Snapping his dad’s manifesto closed, Jax stood up, and he left. 

///

The next time Jax went to Parnassus, he left his kutte and his bike at home, wore plain clothes without any club paraphernalia, and  _ borrowed  _ Opie’s truck. Even with these precautions, he also hid his features behind a hat pulled low, the brim meant to further obscure his features. Jax might not have even stepped foot in the hospital during that trip into the city, but the last thing he needed was someone noticing him or his particular interest in a certain doctor. Still not sure of her schedule, Jax left Charming early enough that, not only did he miss the majority of the claustrophobic San Francisco traffic, but he also arrived at UCSF while it was still dark.    
  
After parking the truck, he just sat there in the chilly cab, waiting and watching. His goal was to catch Tara either coming or going, though her arrival would save him another trip to the hospital. He had been in luck, too. Minutes after Tara walked through the main hospital doors to start her shift, Jax had slipped out of the truck, casually strolled towards a garbage can where he threw away some trash that had already been on the messy floorboards, and, as he walked back, conveniently pausing to tie his shoes right next to Dr. Knowles’ old yet seemingly mint SUV, Jax placed a tracking device on the car, his goal for his visit achieved.    
  
He changed up his appearance yet again when he made his third trip to the hospital. With the tracking device on Tara’s vehicle, Jax now knew of all her comings and goings, so, one day, when she made the trek from Concordia where she must live into Inner Sunset for work, he set off from Charming to follow her. Having ordered a pair of cheap scrubs and a lab coat online, Jax tied his hair back, threw on a pair of fake glasses, and snagged an unsuspecting hospital employee’s badge. With the badge, he was able to let himself into the surgical on-call room, selecting a random medical journal and burying his face within its pages. The effort seemed wasted, however, because everyone who stepped foot in that room was seemingly too self-absorbed (or exhausted) to even notice him.    
  
Everyone that was  _ except  _ Dr. Knowles.    
  
She didn’t question his presence in the on-call room, and she didn’t draw anyone else’s attention towards him either, but Jax was left with the distinct impression that she was aware of him nonetheless. The sensation made him question his previous estimation of her aloofness. During his two previous trips into the city, Tara had always been wearing sunglasses as she came and went from the hospital. Jax, perhaps ascribing some of his own behaviors to her, had assumed it was a means to distance herself and avoid others, but, after his experience near her in the on-call room, he started to wonder if the sunglasses weren’t, instead, meant as a way to disguise what was actually a heightened sense of awareness. If he was right and Tara took particular note of her surroundings, why? What made her different from the other unobservant and oblivious residents?   
  
Perhaps it was this question that made him risk exposure and follow her out to a bar after her shift that night. As a biker used to the clubhouse, when Jax overheard some of Tara’s fellow third year residents urging and cajoling her into joining them for drinks, he wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it sure as hell wasn’t Clooney’s Pub. How Clooney’s, out of all of the bars in San Francisco, became the UCSF residents’ - surgeons some of which had Ivy League educations - watering hole of choice, Jax would never know. It was basically a dive bar just a few steps above the Hairy Dog, and that slightly elevated status was due simply to the fact that there was no Ernest Darby dealing crank out of a back room. Clooney’s wasn’t even close to the hospital, everyone schlepping over to the Mission District separately, like Tara, or in groups. But with flat screen TVs tuned to local sports, a pool table, and booze flowing, it got the job done, Jax supposed.   
  
He’d waited until the group of third years had left the on-call room before getting ready to head out after them. Thankfully, Jax had possessed the forethought to bring a few supplies with him in a small duffle, including a change of clothes. So, he trashed the doctor pajamas and the lab coat, stashed the purloined ID badge someplace where it would just appear to have fallen off and gone unnoticed, let down his hair, removed his fake glasses, and shaved. It was the first time Jax had been clean shaven since he’d patched into the club, and everyone from Gemma to Half Sack was going to give him shit about it, but Jax was too invested in his plan for revenge to let a little vanity or ego derail him.    
  
So, now, here he was, nursing a beer and sitting at the horseshoe bar with his back towards Tara and her coworkers. While the rest of them might consider each other friends, it was very clear that, to Doctor Knowles, the other residents were her competition. There was something merciless about her, cutthroat, that the rest of the surgeons were at least better at concealing or lacking entirely. Although, in his position, Jax couldn’t see or watch Tara, he was able to eavesdrop onto her conversations. He knew what she looked like. It didn’t matter how long he lived, her face was one he would never forget. But Jax wanted - no, he needed - to  _ know  _ her, and, so far, watching hadn’t told him shit.    
  
They hadn’t been at the bar long, and Tara hadn’t said much, but Jax had already learned two new things about her: Tara Grace Knowles was introspective, and she was a pool shark. Already, several of her coworkers’ wallets were much lighter than when they had started the night, and not one of them had settled their bar tabs yet. And Tara’s winning streak had nothing to do with her apparent ability to hold her liquor, whereas her fellow surgeons were all proceeding to get sloppy drunk and uninhibited.    
  
“So, this is why you never go out with us, Knowles,” one of the male residents accused. He had the air of an ex-jock, the use of everyone’s last names reminding Jax of David Hale and his ilk from high school. It wasn’t a complimentary comparison by any means. “Instead of unwinding with us, you’re off hustling the unsuspecting of San Francisco.”   
  
Instead of Tara verbally replying, Jax heard the distinct sounds of the cue ball sending yet another solid or stripe, whatever Doctor Knowles’ choice of play was, into a pocket. Less than a minute later, the game was over, Tara had won, and the All-American good ol’ boy was paying up. And flirting shamelessly. The guy had zero game, and, consequently, he wasn’t getting anywhere with Tara, but the attempt still pissed Jax off for a reason he didn’t have the patience or privacy to sort through. No, that kind of self-examination was better attempted when on the back of his bike during the dead of night, far from a bar full of strangers and the woman he was set on killing in retaliation for the deaths of his best friend and his best friend’s wife.    
  
“Seriously, how are you this good at everything, Knowles?”   
  
Before she responded, Jax heard the faint scratching of chalk being applied to a pool stick. “Pool is just hand-eye coordination and geometry,” Tara said blandly, obviously tired of the attention she was receiving, which raised the question of why she had even agreed to go out with these assholes, but then she was talking again, so Jax pushed his curiosity aside to listen. “If a surgeon can’t play pool, then they should hand in their scalpel… or, better yet, turn it on themselves.”   
  
Quite against his will, he found himself laughing at her snark and wit, her almost cruelty, her unapologetic superiority. Luckily, the bar was busy enough that no one picked up on his humor borne of eavesdropping, The moment faded, Jax was careful not to outwardly react again, and the night proceeded much as it had begun. Tara continued to play pool and bluntly shut down any attempt by her coworkers to pick her up. By the time she left Clooney’s Pub alone and of her own free will, while her fellow residents had to support each other outside where they hailed cabs or weaved their way towards the nearest BART station, Jax found himself even more confused than ever.   
  
While he had managed to pick up several random pieces of trivia about Tara, her fundamental identity still eluded him. In fact, she felt further away than she had during that day he spent aimlessly waiting for her to walk by him in Parnassus’ lobby. As Jax casually strolled to where he had parked his bike several streets over, he finally admitted to himself that maybe it wasn’t a lack of understanding that had him so frustrated; perhaps he actually  _ got  _ Doctor Tara Knowles far better than he should have given the fact that their relationship was nothing more than Jax putting in his due diligence before using her to fulfill his need for payback. And he could have been annoyed because he was starting to suspect that, no matter how much he learned about Tara, it’d never be enough.   
  
Because he  _ liked  _ her. Yes, Jax was suspicious of her - there was something going on in her life that was driving Tara to do things she obviously wouldn’t do otherwise… like go out drinking with some of her fellow surgeons on a rare night when she wasn’t actually scheduled to work or on-call, but she also had a dark and twisted sense of humor, and she was so smart that it was both intimidating  _ and  _ a turn-on. Since the photo of her that he had found online, Jax had already and seemingly always found her physically attractive, but, as he had listened to her turn down advances and fleece her coworkers, he caught himself admiring her as well. The only saving grace - and, yes, he could admit how odd that turn of phrase was given the situation - was the fact that, with every moment he spent around Tara Knowles and with every aspect of her that he appreciated, she became ever the more worthy target for his revenge. 

///

Twice a week, like clockwork, Tara went somewhere in West Oakland. She was usually there for no more than an hour, and, afterwards, she would either head into the hospital or go home. Besides this one anomaly, she was a creature of habit, near robotic. It appeared as if the night Jax had followed her to Clooney’s had been a one-time exception. She wasn’t a shopper, she didn’t seem to go to the movies or out to dinner with friends, and she didn’t appear to have a significant other. So, what the hell was in West Oakland?   
  
Given the short window of time she was there and taking her other habits into account, Jax only had one guess: it was her booty call. A no-strings attached, regular hookup. Her fuck buddy. Whatever the hell she called it, it was a problem. Because what if their plans changed, and they met at her place in Concord instead? What if just sex became more than sex, and then Jax had the complication of a boyfriend to factor into his plans for Dr. Knowles? What if, for whatever reason, the asshole got in Jax’s way?   
  
Knowing there was only one way to put his worry to rest, Jax once more made the trip into the city. At least he wouldn’t have to waste an entire day, simply hanging around and waiting for something to happen. Tara went to West Oakland on specific days at specific times, so he headed to where the tracker on her SUV indicated that she parked. Jax got there early, wanting to be able to see exactly which apartment she went into, needing more information if he was going to track the guy down.    
  
Only… when Tara got there, she didn’t go into an apartment building or even a house… not that the area they were in was by any means residential. Dressed in yoga pants with a tote bag slung over her shoulder, she slipped inside of a nondescript, single story building. They were down by the railroad tracks, and there wasn’t much else around them besides a few businesses.   
  
Swearing to himself, Jax reached for his father’s manuscript that he had tossed onto the seat beside him. He had Opie’s truck again and hadn’t planned on getting out of the vehicle, so he hadn’t brought anything to really disguise his appearance. The best he could do was remove the rubber band from the well-read pages, using it to tie back his hair. Luckily, Jax never wore anything associated with SAMCRO when he was tailing Tara, so that worked in his favor, and his facial hair was growing back, though he was keeping it trimmed. For now. Wishing he had his hat but settling for leaving his sunglasses on - apparently, Tara was rubbing off on him, Jax quickly exited the truck to follow after her, slightly pissed at the unexpected turn but more so curious.   
  
The last thing Jax expected, when he opened that door and stepped into the warm, echoing space, was a room full of women -  _ just women _ \- taking a self-defense class. And it wasn’t just a martial arts program. Within seconds, Jax realized that it was also about female empowerment and the emotions that came with confronting, living through, and surviving violence and trauma.    
  
Most of the students ignored the disruption, keeping their backs to him while keeping their eyes on their instructors. Luckily, Tara didn’t turn around. But, still, it was too close of a call. As soon as Jax realized what he had walked in on, his purposeful steps came to a screeching halt, his tennis shoes literally squeaking against the hardwood floors and leaving a scuff. To make matters worse, as he started to backpedal out of the studio his phone rang. Already reaching for the cell to silence it, Jax quickly turned around so that, even if Tara did look over her shoulder, all she would see was a guy wearing blue jeans, a white t-shirt, and sporting a stubby ponytail.    
  
Once he was back on the sidewalk and in the relative safety of outside, Jax slowed his steps. Although he moved towards the truck on autopilot, he knew that he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. What the hell watching Tara leave her self-defense class was supposed to tell him, he wasn’t sure, but he also knew there wasn’t a power on earth that could get him to leave without at least seeing her again.    
  
As he slammed the door behind him, Jax finally looked down at the screen of his phone, not surprised to see at all that he had just missed a call from his mother. The cell vibrated seconds later when her voicemail came in, but Jax deleted it without listening, already knowing what she had said. “Goddamn Gemma,” he cursed, throwing the offending mobile onto the truck’s dash, not caring that the direct sunlight beating down through the windshield would be hell on the electronic device.    
  
While Jax might have been physically at rest, his brain was anything but, and he didn’t have the patience or the interest to entertain yet another one of his mother’s lectures. She’d been on his case for weeks now, wanting to know where the hell he was, what he was doing, and why he wasn’t 100% present for the club. Jax had tried to explain to her that he was just out, trying to wrap his brain around Opie, his  _ best friend’s,  _ suicide, but Gemma wasn’t satisfied with that answer. She argued that he either needed to just throw himself into the club and move on or, in the next breath, to let the club help him come to terms with Opie’s death.    
  
There was a small part of Jax that felt guilty for using Ope’s death as an excuse to justify his absences, but he rationalized it, because it wasn’t a  _ complete  _ lie. In his own way, Jax was mourning Opie… and Donna, only, instead of recalling old memories of his friends, he was laying the groundwork for avenging their deaths. It wasn’t the healthiest way to process his grief, Jax could fully admit that, but it was better than drowning his sorrows in booze, bud, and pussy.    
  
Besides, even if he wanted to be honest with Gemma about his whereabouts, there were two possible ways she could react to his plans, and both were shit. The more likely result would be her running to Clay or Tig with the information. While Jax was determined that he would see Tig pay for his crimes, Clay knowing meant that he would realize that Jax had put the pieces of Donna’s murder together to assemble a puzzle that would, at best, be a complication for the SAMCRO president and, at worst, send him to meet Mr. Mayhem; and who the hell knows what Tig would do if he found out about Tara and Jax’s intentions towards her. If Tig confronted Jax, and he was forced to kill the Sergeant at Arms, then Jax would give Tig the easy way out. Death was too good for the man who had murdered Donna and then drove Opie to eat his own gun.   
  
The second option was that Gemma would question why a simple hit was taking Jax so goddamn long. As he sat in that truck - the windows down but there was little air movement, starting to feel trapped and caged in, Jax could hear his mother railing against him, ordering him to  _ ‘just shoot the bitch already.’  _   
  
But it wasn’t that simple.    
  
And the worst part was that Jax wasn’t sure why killing Doctor Tara Grace Knowles was proving to be so difficult.    
  
He told himself that the more he knew about her, the deeper he could twist the knife inside of Tig when he revealed the retaliation. Jax justified his caution, and his preparation, and his attention to detail with his need to not get caught. Opie and Donna might be gone, and he was determined that he was going to do something to avenge their deaths, but sitting in a jail cell for the rest of his life on death row wouldn’t honor anyone. And Jax could admit to himself that the last place he wanted to be currently was in Charming or with the club. Following Tara was a distraction - both from his sadness but also from his feelings of impotent rage. He knew so much but could prove nothing, and Jax’s inability to take action within SAMCRO against Clay and Tig was suffocating him.    
  
It was with these thoughts distracting him, taunting him, that Jax halfheartedly watched Tara leave the self-defense studio. Much like when she was leaving work, she didn’t linger or socialize with the others also walking out with her. With the shield of her sunglasses in place, Tara made it to her SUV with sure, purposeful steps… only to falter and freeze before opening her door.   
  
For a moment, she just stood there, her head whipping back and forth from side to side like she was looking for something. Or someone. And then Jax watched her reach out with a shaking hand and lift rose petals from her windshield. It was like she needed to touch the flower pieces in order to believe that her eyes weren’t deceiving her, but, once she had that confirmation, she dropped them as though their brief touch had scalded her skin.    
  
At that point, Jax sat up and took notice. He even found himself reaching for the door handle as if to get out of the truck and go to her. Instead, he wrapped his hands around the steering wheel, using it as a tether, his grip tight and unforgiving. Almost immediately, Jax could feel his fingers cramping from the effort. His entire body was tense as he watched Tara practically sprint around her car. As she moved, he heard the telltale tone of her doors unlocking. And then Tara whipped open the front passenger door, snapped open the glove box, and removed a gun.    
  
“Jesus Christ,” Jax swore to himself.    
  
He had been so wrong about her. Oh, she was still stunningly smart and beautiful, and she had a wickedly dry sense of humor, but Tara Knowles wasn’t aloof, or caustic, or supercilious, or cold; she was  _ scared _ . She kept people at arm's length, because she didn’t trust them, and she didn’t trust them, because it was now obvious to Jax that she had been hurt in the past. And badly. Her sunglasses weren’t meant to keep a distance between her and the rest of the world, but, rather, she hid behind them, not wanting to be seen.    
  
As Tara slipped her small pistol into her purse and then once more rounded the vehicle to climb inside, start the SUV, and peel away, Jax asked himself just what kind of hurt had she suffered? From a distance, he tailed her, but, now, following Tara wasn’t just about learning her; now, he also had to figure out what the hell was going on. His knee jerk suspicion was that, despite Tig’s obliviousness to her existence, perhaps not everybody in their world was ignorant of Grace Knowles’ daughter. If a rival club or some other enemy of Tig’s was after her, he had to stop them… not to protect Tara but to protect himself and the club. Plus, he couldn’t let someone else beat him to the shot.    
  
However, the rose petals felt intimate... more like the moves of an ex or a stalker than a hardened gangster. But they could also have some sinister meaning - perhaps something to do with Grace’s history with Tig - that Jax wasn’t aware of, couldn’t possibly have any knowledge of. Plus, who the hell knew what kind of sick, twisted death fetishes some hitman was into? For fuck’s sake, Happy tattooed a smiley face on his body for every kill. Rose petals weren’t nearly as creepy as grinning tally marks. And if the guy was able to slip in under Jax’s nose, mess with Tara’s car when he went inside for those few minutes or while he was distracted by the hamster-wheel of his never ending thoughts, then he wasn’t just some novice; the asshole had formal training.   
  
Whatever the story behind the taunting tribute, Tara was running scared, and Jax was moving further and further away from his plans for revenge. 

///

Jax wasn’t sure if he should find it reassuring that Tara actually knew what the hell she was doing with her gun or if it made the situation just all that much more disturbing, because, if someone who had taken an oath to help others, to save lives, was desperate enough to master a weapon meant to take them, just how bad was whatever had her running scared? The dichotomy of her character, however? That Jax knew was fascinating. Oddly enough, though, Tara’s proficiency with her pistol didn’t worry Jax as far as his own safety was concerned.    
  
It wasn’t ego that made him not fear her. He’d be the first to admit that, in watching Tara, he had made more than one mistake, gotten sloppy too many times for comfort, and had nearly been caught as many times as he had managed to slip away undetected. Yet, he kept following her… even when he didn’t necessarily need to like that afternoon. When Tara pulled into the firing range, Jax trailing behind her in Piney’s shit car, there was no question as to why she was there, and, if he was truly still following her just to make sure that no one got to her first, then he definitely didn’t need to see for himself that she was capable of protecting herself. But none of that stopped Jax from pulling his own piece out of the glovebox, climbing out of the sedan, and retracing Tara’s steps inside.   
  
His rationalization was, since he had taken the pains to buy some different clothes and change his appearance again - some dark wash, tighter fitting jeans, a light sweater, and hair cut short, he might as well put the efforts to use, especially because the shorn hair was going to be a pain in the ass on the club front. But he need not have worried about Tara noticing him, because, despite her vigilance, she had bigger nuisances to deal with than a guy that might look like somebody she had once seen sitting in the hospital waiting room or drinking at a bar.    
  
Maybe Jax was used to target practice taking place in a field with old beer bottles to aim at instead of faceless, paper men, but he knew what type of environment a firing range provided and what type of clientele they attracted. They were sausage fests, and Tara - with her luxurious locks and the best ass in the entire Bay Area as far as Jax was concerned - was going to draw more attention than even she could fend off, the gun in her hands a turn-on and not a deterrent. Rather than practicing their own shot, several men had put their guns down and wandered over to stand behind Tara, watching. While Jax, too, paused in his firing to observe what happened next, he didn’t move from his lane.    
  
“A pretty girl like you should get a man to keep her safe, not a gun,” one of her observers remarked like the misogynist he obviously was.    
  
Without looking over her shoulder, Tara snarked, “then what will protect me from the man?” To punctuate her point, she lowered her aim slightly and fired. While it was still a body shot, Tara’s placement of the bullet caused her sea of admirers to cringe collectively. Apparently finished with her session… or at least satisfied with her shot and unwilling to subject herself to more harassment, Tara quickly put away her gun and her unused rounds. Pivoting around to leave, she got in one last, parting remark. “I don’t need a  _ boy  _ to handle my shit.”   
  
In their affronted distraction, no one noticed him slip out behind Tara, leaving the range just seconds after she did. When Jax had made the trip into the city earlier that day, his plan had been to spend just the afternoon on his  _ special project  _ before heading back to Charming and putting in an appearance with the club. But when he sat waiting to turn out of the parking lot - one way taking him back inland and the other after Tara, Jax didn’t even hesitate. He turned west, and he followed Tara home to make sure she got there safely, and then he parked slightly down the street to just sit and keep an eye on things, making sure that she stayed that way. It wasn’t the first time he had spent his night watching over her, and it wouldn’t be his last. 

///

  
The only thing about the house that said Tara to Jax was its cleanliness. Despite what was obviously decades worth of clutter, there was an almost sterile aspect to the little California bungalow that had nothing to do with its white walls. It barely looked lived in. Tara existed there. She ate, she slept, she showered; that’s it.    
  
Jax didn’t need to see a deed or look up the house’s history to know that it had once been Grace Knowles’, Tara inheriting the small ranch when her mother passed away. But that had been three years earlier, and Tara hadn’t changed a thing. While the house didn’t have the feel of a shrine, it also didn’t feel like a  _ home  _ either. It was as though Tara simply didn’t care enough to make it her own. What was particularly odd about the lack of her personal touches, though, was the fact that Tara had grown up in the house. If it wasn’t for the portrait timeline of her life hanging throughout the rooms - the white walls working as a gallery, Jax might have thought he was in the wrong place.   
  
So, Grace Knowles had been an artist. And perhaps a musician, too. That both fit with the woman he had seen in the photos with Tig and made their relationship less implausible. After all, throughout history, artists were known for their insanity and tragic love stories. Sometimes both. Toss in a healthy dose of eccentricity, and Jax was starting to get a clearer picture of Grace and her past.   
  
As he wandered through the bright house - it smelled like lemons and clean laundry, and the many windows would have appealed to an artist, Jax wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking for or why he was there. Though he had planned this excursion, taking pains once more to alter his appearance - plain clothes washed without soap; newly shorn hair slicked back with just water and then covered with a hat; neatly trimmed facial hair; no smoking, no cologne, no lingering scent of any kind, it now seemed pointless. Tara was at work and wasn’t due home for hours. The house had nothing to tell him about her. Yet, he lingered anyway.    
  
There wasn’t a scrap of leather or a silhouette of a motorcycle to be found, but Jax felt comfortable in Tara’s residence. If it wasn’t art, then it was an instrument, or an album, or a coffee table book about art or music. From the moment a person stepped foot into the bungalow, they were immersed in a different world. Instead of a dining room table, Grace had a piano. There was a record player in every room. The back living space with wrap around windows served as a long since obsolete studio, an easel and partially finished painting still set up. There were guitars on stands and guitars hanging on the walls. There were bongos, and a cello, more percussion instruments than Jax could even name, and there were some instruments he didn’t even recognize.    
  
The attached garage was nothing but floor to ceiling shelving with finished canvases lined up like books. There were enough records to open a music store. Or a museum. While there were wooden stools and more than one piano bench, the only actual chair was positioned in front of an intricate and impressive sound system, an ottoman with it. Even in the room that had obviously been Tara’s mother’s, there was nothing of comfort besides a daybed, the rest of the space dedicated to Grace’s art. There wasn’t a TV to be found in the house.   
  
Besides the kitchen and bathrooms - neither containing any personalization, the only spaces remaining were a small bedroom, Tara’s, and an equally small office, also Tara’s. Still to that day, if Jax went to his mom’s house, his old room would look the same. Yet, Tara’s room, the room she had called her own in some way or another since childhood, possessed nothing of her youth. There were no outdated posters on the wall. It wasn’t decorated in the bright shades of adolescence or the moody hues of teenage rebellion. Like the rest of the house, the floors were hardwood, and the walls were white and covered with Grace’s artwork, though none of the pieces were of Tara herself. The queen sized bed had neutral yet high quality linens, the bedside table clear of any knick knacks or even reading material. There wasn’t an article of clothing out of place or order within the closet.   
  
As for the office, it was more of the same. Maple floors, gallery walls, artwork. Instead of musician memoirs and artist biographies, the floor to ceiling shelves on two of the four walls contained not only medical textbooks and journals but novels of every genre. The desk was clear of clutter - just a laptop, a potted orchid (purple, not pink), and a small desk lamp. While the bones of this corner of the house, Tara’s corner, were the same as the rest of the bungalow, there were obvious differences as well. Adding that contrast to everything else he had learned about Tara so far, Jax had to wonder if Tara really was the product of her parents, having purposefully become the antithesis of them.    
  
Jax was debating whether or not to go through the medicine cabinet - and why did that seem like more of an invasion of privacy than anything else? - when several noises, all from the tiny, front porch, made him pause and stand perfectly still where he was in the small hallway that connected Tara’s bedroom with the bath and office. Someone tried the locked door handle, and they lifted the top of the mailbox. From where Jax could see out into the front room, a moving shadow was cast upon the far wall and the bare floor as, whoever was outside, paced from door to windows, their tread rapping against the porch stairs with every trip back and forth.    
  
“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” Even without looking, Jax could tell that the questioning voice belonged to an elderly, female neighbor. The sound of an old biddy was universally known. “I don’t know you, and you shouldn’t be poking around that house. Leave or I’m calling the cops!”   
  
On stealth, silent feet, Jax moved into Tara’s bedroom, so he could look out of the window. If this was the guy stalking Tara, who made her scared enough to take self-defense lessons and carry a handgun, then he wanted to get eyes on the son of a bitch. A face might also help lead to a name and an ID, which would then tell Jax exactly who and what he was up against. Before Jax could peer between two slats of the blinds, he heard the other man chuckle. It was condescending.    
  
“I am the cops,” Tara’s stalker replied. To support his claim, the peeping Tom flashed a badge, though, for Jax at least, the gesture wasn’t required, because the asshole reeked of Fed. From the toes of his dress shoes to the fresh off the agent factory line haircut, the guy outside couldn’t be anything but police. The only questions were what agency and what the hell did the asshole want with Tara?    
  
Before the nosey neighbor could inquire further, the cop was walking towards her, his voice fading and fading the further he moved away from Tara’s house and Jax inside of it, and further volunteering, “But I’m also  _ Tara’s  _ boyfriend.” The way the prick said Tara’s name made Jax’s hackles rise. “It felt like forever, being away from my  _ Tar-Tar _ , but my transfer to the Oakland field office  _ finally  _ came through, and I want to surprise her.” The last thing he heard was the creaking of a screen door which told Jax that the old woman had bought the Fed’s story and had invited him in - probably for coffee with a side of chit-chat. But Jax didn’t believe any of it.   
  
While he wasn’t sure what the actual story was, whatever had gone down between Tara and the ATF agent wasn’t a love story straight out of a 1950s sitcom. The son of a bitch was terrorizing her. She was so on edge, so scared, that she didn’t even trust her own shadow. The asshole already had a strike against him for being a cop, but the way he talked about Tara, his possessiveness? Jax was livid. And the very last thing on his mind was whether or not the ATF agent was aware of Tara’s connection to the Sons of Anarchy.    
  
Without moving from his spot in the window, he waited until the Fed eventually left the neighbor’s house, getting into a little subcompact car and driving off. Once the coast was clear, Jax left as he had come in, slipping out the back and walking through the fence’s gate into the alley. Before he was even back to where he had parked a block over, Jax was cursing his decision to bring his bike that day. The plan had been to check out Tara’s house and then head back to Charming for church that evening. Knowing that she was scheduled for a shift and then on-call for the night, Jax had been confident that Tara was accounted for and safe for twenty-four hours.    
  
But, now, he couldn’t leave. Once night fell, what if the Fed came back? He could let himself into Tara’s house and be lying in wait for when she got home. While Jax wasn’t ignorant to the irony of the entire situation - that he was only aware of Tara and her ATF stalker and around to watch out for her, to protect her, because he himself was planning on killing her, he also didn’t see an alternative. He wasn’t ready to kill Tara yet, and the cop was the immediate threat. So, he’d stay. He’d park his bike closer to Tara’s house - not on the street but in the church lot just down the road, and he’d skip the club meeting with no word or notice, because, no matter who he talked to, they’d have questions, and, at that point, Jax didn’t have a single answer. 

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know. How could I do that to Opie? Well, to be honest, Jax's thoughts on Opie's actions were much my own in regards to what happened to Opie's character after Donna's murder. Plus, trust me that, even though he is dead, Opie will very much have an important presence in this story. He is a driving force behind it. For those of you concerned that Tara did not make an appearance in this chapter, don't worry. We'll meet her soon, and once we do, she'll be in this story for good. On a final note, the chapter titles may seem rather random, but they have a very specific meaning. Two, in fact. One is more obvious, and another is a testament to my love of research. Feel free to offer guesses. If you get it right, I'll let you know. No matter what, I'll explain the chapter titles for everyone then with the last post. And that's all... for now. As always, enjoy!
> 
> ~Charlynn~


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